Cartmel Worth A Look

Irish Prince, who is entered at Worcester on Wednesday

There is a busy day ahead with six meetings taking place.  Five of them are on the flat with the action coming from Newcastle, Yarmouth, Doncaster, Newmarket and Chester, while there is a jumps fixture from Cartmel.  If you are anywhere near Cartmel and have never paid the place a visit, it is well worth going along.  The atmosphere there is fantastic - just be careful where you park your car as all the roads for miles around get blocked (and I am speaking from experience).  Champion jockey Richard Johnson looks like the man to follow with three of his four mounts looking to have very good claims.

Newcastle have a Group 3 fillies' stakes worth over £34,000 on their card as well as a handicap that is worth in excess of £31,000, so well done to them on an excellent job.

I see there was a gamble that went astray yesterday on Stuart Williams' newcomer Antonia Clara at Newmarket.  The two year old was backed from 16/1 into 3/1 on her debut but was well beaten in 9th.  Better was clearly expected, but his is a shrewd yard that do not often leave the money in the bookies' satchel so it could pay to keep an eye out for this one over the coming weeks.

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It was a disappointing result for England as our reserves were beaten 1-0 by the Belgian reserves last night.  Consequently we now get Colombia on Tuesday and while that is probably a harder match than Japan, the remainder of that half of the draw looks easier.  Even so, I thought England looked poor last night and we were lucky to keep the score down to 1-0.   Our goalkeeper Jordan Pickford needs to learn to save with his right hand and also how to punch the ball away from the penalty area.  The facts are that Belgium had more possession and more shots on target.  I suppose Gareth Southgate knows what he is doing, but it shows how moderate the game was when the best player on the pitch was Fellaini!  Does it sound like I did my money?!

I see that current British number one tennis player Kyle Edmund lost his cool as well as the match against world number 90 Mikhail Kukushkin.  Don't forget in a previous round he dispatched injured Andy Murray.  I can't believe that Murray is even considering trying to play at Wimbledon next week.  You need to be 100% fit to win on these grass courts and he plainly isn't.

Six times British superbike champion Shane Byrne fears that his career may be over after a horror shunt at Snetterton last week when he crashed head-on into a wall.  Byrne 41, now needs to have a 'Halo' fitted which is fixed to his skull by screws.  "Do I want to do it again?  Of course"  he said.  You obviously need to be completely mad for some of these sports, or at least it helps!

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I've recently been reading a book on reverse psychology, or have I?!

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